Technical Field
The present invention relates to pet supplies, and particularly to an automatic pet feeder.
Related Art
An automatic pet feeder, especially a programmable automatic pet feeder, is mainly a device used for providing food for pets regularly and quantitatively according to a program under conditions where the pets cannot be monitored by humans (for example, on business or travel). By means of the device, the pets can acquire a suitable amount of food on time to ensure health. A more advanced automatic feeder can accommodate more food, so as to provide longer-time automatic feeding; and can also implement everyday single or multiple feeding and adjustment on the amount of feeding for each meal through program control.
For example, in terms of a commercially available automatic feeder, an upper portion thereof has a container in the shape of an inverted cone (i.e., big end up), and the container can accommodate 2-4 kg of dog food. The bottom of the inverted cone is connected to a food leaking mechanism. The mechanism consists of a cylinder and several groups of blades evenly distributed on an upper surface of the cylinder. Each group of blades equally divide the circumference of the cylinder therebetween. The mechanism is externally encircled by a cylinder to form a relatively closed space; in this way, the blade groups equally divide a space formed by the inner and outer cylinders, thereby implementing quantification. An upper end of the outer cylinder is connected to the container in the shape of an inverted cone, to allow that food can fall into a space formed by two groups of blades and the two cylinders by means of its own gravity. A lower end of the outer cylinder is connected to a slope, to allow the food to flow out. When the food leaking mechanism operates according to a preset program, a motor drives the cylinder with the blades to rotate, and the food can flow from an upper food container to a lower food bowl. Such a technical solution is a solution which is relatively simple and more popular but is prone to get stuck. When the food reaches the bottom of the container in the shape of an inverted cone, it is easy to form a stable structure, i.e., a stuck state, due to interaction of gravity and friction between the food, and it is more prone to get stuck especially when the food is irregular in appearance or bigger in particle size. When the blades on the inner cylinder rotate, in order to overcome pressure and friction caused by upper food, it is also prone to get stuck. In addition, hard blades may get stuck because the food is clamped, and in order to solve the problem, when the blades are made of a soft material, there is a possibility that the space between the blade groups changes significantly, but the problem of inaccurate feeding quantity arises.
As stated above, lots of users of the automatic feeder reflect that the feeder has design defects, and problems such as the food leaking mechanism gets stuck and food leakage quantity is uncontrollable may occur. In addition, the following problems may also occur: the structural design is not good, a pet may acquire extra food through some actions and damage the feeder, the programming is complicated and manipulation is difficult.
The above problems are fatal, for example, the feeding mechanism gets stuck, the feeder stops feeding, and the pet may starve and even die if the master goes out for a long time.
A serious problem, for example, the feeding quantity is uncontrollable, may result in that the food intake of the pet is unstable or the pet starves for a long time, or the pet intakes too much food for a long time, to cause health problems, such as obesity, diabetes and malnutrition; or the pet may damage the feeder structure through actions to acquire extra food, thereby causing health problems and the like.
A slight problem, for example, the programming is complicated and illogical, may affect user experience.
Therefore, it is urgent in the field of current pet feeding utensils to provide an automatic feeder that can solve the fatal problems, ensure that the food leaking mechanism is stably operated and does not get stuck, ensure accurate food leaking quantity, prevent the pet from acquiring extra food, and is simple to operate.